Try not to let paranoia interfere with your photography. And if you step over the line and get called out for it maybe think twice before reflexively rushing to use your long-tenured sense of entitlement to fix something you created. Too many photographers seem too quick to play the victim card.

 

I have a camera in my hands. I should be able to step around the velvet rope, poke my head into private property --- just gettin a better snap. Ooops. Now I've been asked to follow the rules. It feels like I'm being punished; yelled at, when all I did was... break the rules. But for photography. Yeah. Well, because I'm special...

And the ground swell that follows in the conversation: Me too! I've been violated, emotionally, just for trying to get a better photo! Oh yeah? Well, I have every right to push my camera inches from a stranger's face, you know, to get a better photograph, but they yelled at me!!! Don't they know who I am? 

Ah...the generation raised with more privilege than any other generation in history gets their nose out of joint when... they violate the social contract. When they trespass. When they demand special privileges. Because....photographer!!! 

Just because you can physically do something doesn't mean you should. Nor does it always mean you have the right to. And does the comfort and perceived security of a subject fall short in value compared to the whims of an amateur photographer's demand for access?  Not thinking that to be the case...

We used to live in a free society. We're quickly becoming residents of a police state. Any wonder normal people are getting less comfortable being photographed just so someone can get "likes" on IG? 

Stings a bit but I'm as guilty as the next pompous, entitled photographer waving a copy of the law around in my hands while I make a binary decision about someone else's privacy. Or someone else's expectation of privacy as it applies to their own private property. Sometimes that horse gets so high I'm actually afraid of falling off. 

Life doesn't need to be "us versus them" on every encounter we have with our cameras and the rest of the world. Common courtesy would be nice --- if we could just get the people with grand senses of entitlement to believe the need for common courtesy applies to them as well. Just sayin'

I guess courtesy is not so common after all...

Progress on the shoulder: Better every hour. Two weeks should fly by. 

To keep myself from being bored I thought I'd drive my car through the fence at the airport and tryout my new lens by standing at the end of the runway photographing airplanes as they land.

I know there is a sign that says, "No Trespassing" but I'm sure that message is 

meant for people who aren't as important as I am. Right?

I mean, I pay taxes, I must be entitled.

And in case you didn't get it, that last bit about the airplanes was supposed to be 

pure sarcasm.